Tens of thousands of Scottish National party members will cast their votes from Monday to select their party leader and Scotland’s next first minister, after a snap election forced by Nicola Sturgeon’s shock resignation.

Polling began at noon on Monday with Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s health secretary, vying to become the country’s first minority ethnic first minister, against Kate Forbes, the finance secretary, and Ash Regan, a former community safety minister and the outlier candidate.

Yousaf, 37, is regarded as Sturgeon’s preferred candidate after winning endorsements from the party’s most senior figures, including John Swinney, the outgoing deputy first minister; Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s Westminster leader; and roughly half of Sturgeon’s cabinet.

The SNP’s first open leadership contest for nearly 20 years has been marked by an unprecedented level of infighting over the party’s track record and attacks on several of Sturgeon’s most cherished policies, particularly from Forbes and Regan.

Nearly all workers in the state of Illinois will soon officially be guaranteed at least one week of paid leave, under legislation signed Monday by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

"Working families face so many challenges, and it's been my mission to alleviate all those burdens in every way that I can," Pritzker said at a bill signing ceremony. "Too many people can't afford to miss even a day's pay. But then crises arise, sometimes seemingly small, sometimes catastrophic, and they live in fear of losing income vital to their family's survival or other repercussions at work..."

The “Paid Leave for All Workers Act” states that employees will accrue one hour of paid leave for every 40 hours worked up to 40 hours total, although the employer may offer more. Employees can start using the time once they have worked for 90 days, the legislation says.

And, unlike similar bills in other states, the expansive paid leave legislation would require Illinois employers to give workers time off based on hours worked, to be used for any reason -- not just for health reasons.

The jury in the penalty phase of the trial of a terrorist convicted of committing a 2017 attack for ISIS that killed eight on a New York City bike path has told the judge it was unable to reach a unanimous decision.

A unanimous decision would be required to sentence Sayfullo Saipov to death in the first death penalty trial under the Biden administration.

A verdict that is not unanimous means Saipov will be sentenced to life in prison.

Saipov was convicted in January of all counts against him for the fatal terror attack he committed on Halloween in 2017, driving a rental truck down a New York City bike path killing eight and injuring several more.

Let’s give a big round of applause to the pollsters. Measuring public opinion is, in many ways, harder than ever — and yet, the polling industry just had one of its most successful election cycles in U.S. history. Despite a loud chorus of naysayers claiming that the polls were either underestimating Democratic support or biased yet again against Republicans, the polls were more accurate in 2022 than in any cycle since at least 1998, with almost no bias toward either party.

Of course, some pollsters were more accurate than others. And today, we’ve updated the FiveThirtyEight pollster ratings to account for each pollster’s performance in the 2022 cycle. Our ratings are letter grades that we assign to each pollster based on historical accuracy and transparency. (You can read exactly how we calculate pollster ratings here.) They’re one of many tools you should use when deciding how much stock to place in a poll.

Before we reveal the best- and worst-rated pollsters, let’s start with our regular review of polling accuracy overall. We analyzed virtually all polls conducted in the final 21 days1 before every presidential, U.S. Senate, U.S. House and gubernatorial general election, and every presidential primary, since 1998,2 using three lenses — error, “calls” and statistical bias — to conclude that 2022 was a banner year for polling.

In our opinion, the best way to measure a poll’s accuracy is to look at its absolute error — i.e., the difference between a poll’s margin and the actual margin of the election (between the top two finishers in the election, not the poll). For example, if a poll gave the Democratic candidate a lead of 2 percentage points, but the Republican won the election by 1 point, that poll had a 3-point error.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2022-election-polling-accuracy

What looked at first like a Democratic free-for all for Michigan’s open Senate seat is nearly over already. Which is exactly what Debbie Stabenow and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wanted.

The retiring Stabenow has personally steered several of those interested in taking her Mitten State seat toward different positions that will soon open up. And as a result, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) has largely cleared the field in what could have otherwise been a messy Senate primary.

So while the primary itself is more than a year away, there’s a growing feeling that party leaders have avoided a pile-up in a race that Democrats absolutely need to win to keep their majority next fall.

“If we have lots of talented people and they’re all running for different positions, then we get the benefit,” Stabenow, the No. 3 Senate Democrat, said in an interview. “So that’s what I’ve been saying: ‘Think about how to best keep this great talent going in the state.’ And you don’t do it by everybody running for the same seat.”



https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/13/democrats-senate-michigan-stabenow-slotkin-00086655

It wasn’t long ago that many Republicans believed the party might finally be ready to move past former President Donald Trump. Nikki Haley was running for president. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was embarking on a book tour, and a raft of other prominent GOPers were visiting early primary states.

But in the span of a week, the script for the earliest stages of the 2024 primary was written; and once again Trump was the axis around which it all turned.

“It’s Groundhog Day,” said Mike Madrid, the Republican strategist who was a co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project.

While Trump’s approval ratings may be slipping and Republican voters tell pollsters they are willing to look elsewhere, a series of recent developments has kept the party fixated on him and the scandals that defined his time and office. Washington D.C. and the largest conservative news outlet have spent days reliving the Jan. 6 riot. And the specter of a Trump indictment in New York portends an early primary season spent relitigating his record.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/13/trump-republican-primary-00086631

President Joe Biden said he will address the developing situation in the US banking system on Monday morning.

"Yes. I'll talk to you tomorrow morning," he told reporters in response to a question about addressing the situation as he boarded Air Force One to return to the White House.

Later, the White House released a daily guidance for Monday, noting that Biden is scheduled to make remarks on the banking system at 8 a.m. ET before departing for San Diego where he is scheduled to meet the prime ministers of the United Kingdom and Australia.